Word.ws English Dictionary

overwear

/ˌoʊ.vəɹˈwɛəɹ/

overwear verb: to wear out; to exhaust.

Verb

overwear (third-person singular simple present overwears, present participle overwearing, simple past overwore, past participle overworn)

  1. (transitive) To wear out; to exhaust.
    Synonyms:
    exhaust, tax, wear
  2. (transitive) To wear (an item of clothing) too frequently.
    • Because permanent press garments remain fresh looking, there is a tendency to overwear them, thus permitting them to become too heavily soiled.1966, Family Perspective, volumes 1-4, page 37

Noun

IPA/ˈoʊ.vəɹˌwɛəɹ/

overwear (uncountable)

  1. outer clothing

Synonyms of overwear

Forms of overwear

third-person singular presentoverwears
present participleoverwearing
pastoverwore
past participleoverworn

Origin of overwear

From over- + wear.

From over- + -wear.

Questions about overwear

What does overwear mean?
Overwear means to wear out; to exhaust.
What part of speech is overwear?
Overwear can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce overwear?
Overwear is pronounced /ˌoʊ.vəɹˈwɛəɹ/.
What is the past tense of overwear?
The past tense of overwear is overwore.

Words near overwear in the dictionary

  1. overweak
  2. overwealth
  3. overwealthy
  4. overweaning
  5. overweaponed
  6. overwear
  7. overwearied
  8. overwearies
  9. overwearing
  10. overwears
  11. overweary

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overwear (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-overwear.wav.

Cite this entry: “overwear.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/overwear. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.